Cleaning blades which reciprocate transversely to the surface of a photoconductive surface, such as a drum, are known, and are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,740,789 and 4,111,545.
It has already been proposed to provide a packing or like member at each of the axially opposite ends of such a photoconductive drum for sealing the side space around the end of the drum as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,691 (FIG. 11). However, the packing or like seal member, when merely provided at the drum end, will contact the drum over a large area and adversely affect the drum. The large contact area is also likely to deform the seal member owing to deterioration, permitting toner particles to fall through the resulting clearance. Furthermore, the seal member, if completely sealing off the space around each drum end, limits the lateral movement of the cleaning blade, which in turn inevitably leaves an uncleaned portion at one end of the drum when the blade is moved toward the other end. Since the blade is unable to act on the side sealed portions of the drum, there arises the need to use a photoconductive drum of correspondingly increased length. Thus the conventional side seal method has various problems especially when it is used for cleaning apparatus (such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,740,789, 4,111,545, etc.) wherein the blade is adapted to reciprocatingly move laterally.